A co-founder of the Langley Seniors Recreation and Resources Centre says internal dissension has reached the point where the City of Langley should take over running the facility at 20605 51B Ave.
“The City might as well step in,” Sharon Birnie said during a Wednesday telephone interview with The Times.
“It could be a parks and rec [department] run centre. Maybe that would be a better avenue for our elders.”
The city owns the land and the building operated by the society under a 50-year lease agreement, Birnie said.
If the current battles continue, Birnie said she fears the result will be the “destruction of a fabulous support system for seniors.”
Birnie no longer lives in Langley, but said she has received several messages from current and former staff and volunteers at the centre who are unhappy about the current situation.
Birnie sent an email message to the current president and board of directors of the centre society in April to ask that her name be removed from the centre’s main hall and that “any other signage and advertising that uses my name be discontinued.”
Society board chair Shauna Sailer has said the board was “saddened” by Birnie’s request, and hoped she will change her mind.
Birnie said she doesn’t want her name associated with the centre any more because of the current dispute over spending cuts and policy changes that she believes has brought the centre to the point of collapse.
“It’s all about the money [under the current board and management], it’s not about the seniors,” Birnie said.
“There was a philosophy of mutual respect [when I was at the centre]. We looked out for one another, we looked out for seniors. That’s simply disappeared.”
Birnie said the centre managed to handle big deficits in the past without upsetting members and forcing out long-time staff, something she says the current administration has done.
Several centre employees have either quit or gone on medical leave since the board appointed new management with a mandate to cut costs, including food expenses for the centre cafe and what was described as “excessive” overtime by employees.
“We did worry abut those things [deficits], too, but not to the extent that it becomes the only thing that mattered.”
In May, by a three-to-one margin, the board of directors won a show-of-hands vote at an extraordinary general meeting on a proposal that would have replaced them all.
Birnie said the vote ought to have been conducted by secret ballot.
She also questioned the presence of two Langley RCMP officers at the special meeting, saying there was no need for police protection.
“A bunch of old people with grey hair and glasses? I don’t think so.”
The officers made a brief appearance, walking quickly through the main hall and the spillover crowd in the foyer before departing.
The agenda, distributed before the meeting by the board, mentioned a lone city of Langley community police officer would be attending, as a guest.